The Mystery Of The Broken Dolls, PVV Satyanarayana [electronic reader txt] 📗

THE MYSTERY OF THE BROKEN DOLLS

THE OTHERWISE PEACEFUL jungle had suddenly reverberated with the reports of burglaries. For the past one week, someone was breaking into the houses of various animals at night. Though the burglars touched no valuables, the earthen ‘lion’ dolls were found stolen and broken into pieces outside the houses! This had made everyone wondering at the motive behind it. They sought to dismiss the burglar as an insane one.

The King Lion became furious as the news of the dolls with his image being broken, reached him. He suspected that someone was doing it with vengeance. He had summoned Chintoo, the monkey detective and asked him to investigate and book the culprit.

Chintoo was intelligent and experienced. He had visited the houses that were burgled. In all, five houses were burgled and only the ‘lion’ dolls were broken everywhere. The modus operandi looked similar in all the cases, suggesting it to be the handiwork of the same individual.

Chintoo had come to know that all the broken dolls were of the same shape, size and shade. He also visited the other houses in the jungle that possessed similar dolls. The dolls were hardly six inches in size and looked quite beautiful. Although many houses in the jungle were adorned with the lion’s dolls, there were only twelve houses that possessed the dolls similar to the ones that were broken by the burglar.

PUZZLED BY THE fact that the miscreant was not touching the other ‘lion’ dolls, Chintoo had probed further … A month ago, a jungle fair was held where the dolls in question were bought. The seller of the dolls was a domestic ass from a nearby village… Chintoo went to the village and met the ass, posing himself as a prospective buyer. He showed a specimen of the doll in question and asked him for one for him. The ass told him that he had made only twelve of them, which were all sold out at the jungle fair. Chintoo thanked him and left.

The monkey detective wondered what was the specialty of those dolls to become the target of the miscreant. Meanwhile, two more houses were burgled and the dolls broken. Chintoo had noted that the burglar was choosing the houses in diametrically opposite directions and with a gap of two or three days.

So, he had chosen a house accordingly and kept a watch on it. However, defying his calculations, this time the burglar had struck at a house in the same locality where the previous burglary had taken place. This had brought the number of broken dolls to eight… Chintoo had vowed to unravel the mystery before the remaining four dolls too were broken.

THREE DAYS AFTER the last burglary, an intruder had entered the house of an elephant after midnight. As the inmates were fast asleep, he moved stealthily searching for something. Finally he could lay his hands on what he wanted – a cute lion’s doll. Keeping it at his ear, he shook it a little. Thereafter, he came out of the house and stopped under the portico light. He threw the ball to the ground and broke it.

As he bent down anxiously over the broken pieces, suddenly a powerful torch focused on his face. Startled, he straightened up instantly.

“Hands up!” Chintoo had caught the intruder, a middle-aged wolf, unawares – with a revolver in one hand and the torch in the other.

The elephant family woke at the commotion and came out.

“Tell me, my dear, why are you taking so much risk just to break these earthen dolls?” Chintoo asked the wolf.

“I do not like them,” was the cryptic reply. Beyond that the culprit refused to say anything.

Chintoo could not believe that the wolf was doing all that for fun. ‘There is more to it than meets the eye,’ he told himself, and vowed to find it out. He had frisked the wolf and examined the contents found on his person. Significant among them were a country-made pistol, a six-inch knife, a small bunch of keys, a list of addresses and a newspaper cutting. Chintoo noted that the addresses contained in the list were of those who had possessed the target dolls. The addresses of the houses already burgled were found ticked off.

Chintoo’s eyebrows narrowed as he read the report contained in the newspaper cutting. It was about the theft of a blue diamond that had occurred over a month ago in the city. The value of the stolen diamond was reported to be one crore rupees.

The wolf was kept in the lock up of the jungle police station for the night. Chintoo’s mind was hovering over the news item, even as he struggled to steal a nap. After a while, he got up suddenly as something had flashed in his mind.

AT THE BREAK of the dawn, Chintoo rushed to the police station where the culprit was lodged. He had put searching questions to the wolf about the newspaper cutting. The wolf had feigned ignorance, but failed to explain his possessing it.

Chintoo whistled thoughtfully as the mystery seemed to unravel. He had sent for the remaining dolls of the lot. When they were brought, he had picked up one of them and threw it to the ground, breaking it – to the puzzled looks of the owners. After examining the broken pieces, he had picked up another and broke it into pieces. This time his eyes twinkled. He looked triumphantly at the gathering, which became still, bewildered at the sight.

“Well, well … that is it!” said Chintoo, picking up the blue diamond that had fallen out of the second broken doll. “This exactly is the thing this bugger is after. And this is the diamond that was stolen from the city recently”.

A FEW THRASHINGS, and the wolf had spilled the beans … Over a month ago, the wolf had stolen the blue diamond from a jewellery shop in the city. While being on the run from the police, he came across ass’s doll shop. He had slid the diamond sneakily in one of those lion dolls under making at the time and ran away. Later, however, he was picked up by the police on suspicion and put in jail. As the stolen item could not be traced to him, he was released after a month.

He then went to the ass’s doll shop hoping to retrieve the diamond. As he remembered the mode, size and shade of the doll in which he had hidden the diamond, he enquired about it posing to buy. But the ass had told him that only a dozen of them were made and sold away at the jungle fair.

So the wolf came to the jungle and collected information about those who had bought those particular dolls. He broke into their houses for the dolls. Unfortunately for him, he was yet to lay his hands on the right doll, which contained the diamond, before he was nabbed….

CHINTOO HAD HANDED over the criminal and the diamond to the city police.

The King Lion was quite happy at the way Chintoo had solved the strange case so soon. He had felicitated him at a function attended by all the animals in the jungle.

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Publication Date: 08-23-2010

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To Children